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News Article
Memory Lane Cemetery, Caddo County, Oklahoma
Submitted by:
Vanita White Hazelrigg
September, 2000
Velora [Truex] Beeler
Longtime city teacher to celebrate her 90th Birthday
Velora [Truex] Beeler of Anadarko will be 90, and the Beeler and Truex families are planning a birthday party at her home at 2101 S.W. 6th, Friday, Sept. 16 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Beeler was born on a farm several miles east of Fletcher, Sept. 15, 1910. She had a older sister, Bertha, who died at the age of five with complications from the German Measles. About two years later, her brother, Albert H. Truex and a sister, Irene Eva Truex were added to her family.
When she was 11, her family moved to a farm four and one half miles south west of Anadarko. Four more children were added to the family, Helen, Mary Lee and Walter. She attended a rural school through the eighth grade. In those days, all farm children worked their farms. She remembers riding a plow behind two horses, planting corn, wheat and cotton. She worked chopping the weeds out of the cotton patch in the spring and picking the cotton in the fall. School always started the Monday after Labor Day, and turned out for cotton picking for a month through October.
There were no school buses, so for the ninth through the 12th grades, she rented a room, sharing it with one of two high school girls, near the high school. Their high school is now the senior citizen building. She graduated in May 1928, and had started dating John Beeler during her senior year. She intended to enroll at Central State in Edmond, for the fall semester but she and her mother both took the flu and it developed into pneumonia. They were both critically ill for several weeks. Dr. Kerley would come and sit with them for hours. Neighbor women brought food. Grandma Zisman and several aunts took turn coming to care for the family and the patients.
As she recovered she wanted to go to Edmond for the second semester. She dyed her tennis shoes brown then wore them through the water and mud. She developed blood poisoning in both feet and almost lost them, because of no penicillin.
In June of 1929, Velora, Mable Trogden and Julia Zisman enrolled at Central State for the summer. They shared one room and one bed. Mable Trogden had the only watch so they would grab her arm during the night and check the time. They were never too late for class.
That August, Velora and John decided to get married. They went to Oklahoma City to John's aunt. She took them to a huge tent Baptist Revival. At the end of the evening service, the preacher performed the ceremony and gave them a bible. The date was August 15, 1929, and Velora still has the Bible.
The big depression had hit the country. There were no jobs, so they moved to Clovis, N.M. John found a job hauling produce from Albuquerque, N.M. to Clovis. Their son, Johnnie was born there.
John's job closed out so they moved back to her parents farm. He found a job helping build the Anadarko Hospital on Virginia Ave. The W.P.A. had put men to work building a road from Lawton to Cyril, Cyril to Cement, and Cement to Chickasha. So John joined the W.P.A. They bought a home at 715 W. Alabama for $1300, their payments were $13 a month. In July, 1941 they adopted a three day old baby boy, Bobby. The whole Truex family enjoyed him.
In 1946, Velora drove to the Oklahoma College for Women in Chickasha for two years to get a teaching degree. During that time, she started teaching second grade at Gracemont. For four years, she had to go through Oklahoma University to get a teaching certificate, but they required a lot more hours, so she took correspondence and drove to O.U. on Saturdays. Finally, she received her Bachelor of Arts degree. In 1949, she and her sisters Irene and Julia Zisman drove to O.U. each day and received their Masters Degrees.
She taught in the Anadarko Elementary school for 37 years. While teaching, she was a foster parent for nine years to 14 welfare children. Also during those years she raised turkeys, chickens, sold eggs and always had a large garden.
When the Bethel Baptist Church was in the building stage, she placed a piano in her basement, and Sunday school and services were held there until the church building was completed. She helped at Bethel Baptist transporting children and teaching Sunday school for 20 years. When an Indian mission on the north side of Anadarko needed help, she transported children and worked there until it became organized, then she went back to the First Baptist Church, and is still active there.
In 1950, they bought a farm at the south edge of Anadarko, and built a brick home there, where she still lives.
After her retirement, her health problems began. She had three cancer surgeries, broke both legs, one at a time. She spent five weeks in Oklahoma City Hillcrest Hospital with John until he died with Leukemia, Nov. 1, 1989.
She keeps busy working in her yard and with her flowers. Taking her friends to their appointments and going to church. She also picks up her great-granddaughters, Lindsay, age nine, and twins, Loren and Leslie, age 6, after school each day. Sometimes stopping at Wal-Mart. Then she helps them with their homework before their parents pick them up. She says they help keep her mind active.
She has such a wonderful positive attitude. She says, "My faith in the Lord helps me. He knows what is best for me. I am so thankful to God because I am independent and not a burden to anyone. My two sons, Johnnie and Bobby and their families live nearby and they are willing and able to take care of any need."Obituary
Memory Lane Cemetery, Caddo County, Oklahoma
Submitted by:
Vanita White Hazelrigg
Tuesday, May 27, 2003
Velora [Truex] Beeler
Services for Velora [Truex] Beeler, 92, of Anadarko will be held at 2 o'clock this afternoon at the First Baptist Church of Anadarko with the Rev. Randy Robertson, pastor, and the Rev. Ray Weathers, pastor of Bethel Baptist Church of Anadarko, officiating.
Mrs. Beeler was born Sept. 15, 1910 near Fletcher to Albert C. and Ida (Zisman) Truex and entered into eternal rest Friday, May 23, 2003 in Anadarko as a result of injuries received in a traffic accident.
In August 1929, she and John A. Beeler were married in a Baptist revival tent in Oklahoma City . He preceded her in death Nov. 1, 1989.
She was also preceded in death by her parents; one granddaughter, Terry Jean Beeler; one daughter-in-law, Billie Beeler; one brother, Albert Truex and an infant sister, Bertha.
Mrs. Beeler attended school near Fletcher and in Cement before her family moved to the rural Anadarko area. She graduated from Anadarko High School with the Class of 1928. She attended Central State College in Edmond for one year.
After her marriage, she went back to college and received both her bachelor's and master's degrees. She taught for many years in the Anadarko school system, and after her retirement, she worked as a substitute teacher until she was 75.
She and her husband farmed and raised chickens, turkeys and cattle. She was no stranger to hard work and never complained about anything.
When she was 26 years old, she was saved at the First Baptist Church when Brother John Kelly was pastor. She worked as hard for the church as she did anywhere. She helped with the establishment of Virginia Avenue Baptist, Indian Capitol Baptist and Bethel Baptist churches, when they were started as missions.
She served in many capacities and offices in the church, but received the most joy and satisfaction out of working with the nursery and children's departments. She always brought a car full of kids to Sunday School and church, who otherwise would never have been in church.
After her own family was grown, she took in foster children and some lived with her for several years. There were 12 foster children in all.
In a book of memories, Mrs. Beeler wrote she said she had a happy childhood, a good marriage, a "busy, rewarding life, and if I had it to do over, I wouldn't change a thing."
Survivors include two sons, Johnny Beeler and Bobby Beeler and his wife, Marcy, all of Anadarko; four grandchildren, Michael Beeler, Tammy Thrash, Brandy Beeler and Tracy Beeler, all of Anadarko, five great-grandchildren of Anadarko; three sisters, Irene Harris and Helen Troop, both of Lawton and Mary Lee Hudson and her husband, Roland of Frankfort, Del.; one brother, Walter Truex and his wife, Coann, of Lawton; two sisters-in-law, Elsie Witten of Anadarko and Agnes Truex of Manitou, Calif., several nieces and nephews, other relatives and many, many friends.
Burial will be in Anadarko's Memory Lane Cemetery under the direction of Steverson's Funeral Home of Anadarko.
Pallbearers will be Gene Jones, Philip Melton, Jack Stone, Bobby Owen, Brian Verser and Leslie Pain, all deacons of the First Baptist Church .
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